Leave a Light On
by lilbreck
Summary: Bonnie needs Caroline's help to change what has gone wrong and sends her back to shortly after the Salvatore brothers came to Mystic Falls. Heavily Caroline-centric, though it also features Bonnie and Sheila POV's.
1. We Will Not Pass This Way Again

It said a lot about a person's life when they barely batted a carefully curled eyelash as their friend's little brother led them down into the dank school basement to visit the body of their best friend.

Okay, Caroline had done a hell of a lot more than bat an eyelash when Jeremy had told her that Bonnie was dead. There had been tears, and denials, and even talk of how they could bring her back to life. Jeremy had calmly listened to it all and waited for her to a get ahold of herself. When he said that Bonnie wanted to talk to her, she cleaned up her face and reapplied her makeup –Bonnie obviously had enough to worry about, she didn't have to see Caroline looking like she had been dragged through hell as well—and told Jeremy to lead the way.

When she asked Jeremy why they were heading to the school he explained that that's where Bonnie had died.

"And you couldn't have moved her somewhere better?"

Caroline could hear both anger and guilt in his voice when he bit back, "This isn't exactly Sunnydale. There aren't a lot of places to hide a dead body, and people might notice me carrying around my dead girlfriend."

It was, of course, the least important part of his statement that caught Caroline's attention and she spoke without thinking.

"You two got back together?"

Jeremy vaguely shrugged and told her that it was complicated. Luckily, Caroline managed to hold in her thoughts about ghost fetishes as they pulled up to the school. As they descended into the basement, she quickly lost the ability to think about anything beyond the current situation.

She noticed Bonnie… She noticed the body right away. In fact, it took a lot to focus on anything beyond the body of her friend. But Jeremy had brought her here for a reason, and it wasn't to grieve.

"We set up a circle and got everything ready. All you have to do is put this on your eyelids, lay down in the circle, and I'll light the candles. You go to sleep, and then Bonnie can talk to you."

Caroline turned to Jeremy, taking the plastic bowl he held out. She could feel the snark and questions bubbling up out of her and while she knew she should probably be quiet, she had never really learned to hold her tongue. When times got stressful, Caroline was driven to ask questions. The only way to control a situation was to know everything and talk it out. The snark? That was simply who she was.

"First of all, that's a pentagram, not a circle. Second of all, Bonnie can talk to me? And, of course, third of all, why does this smell like blood?"

She could practically see Jeremy swallow down the urge to snap at her. One day she would have to tell him how much she appreciated it. However, right then didn't seem like a good time.

"I figured saying circle would sound less… ominous. This," he continued, slightly raising the bowl, "smells like blood because it is blood –my blood, to be specific—mixed with a few other things. It will, along with a bit of magic on my end and a lot of magic on Bonnie's end, allow you to see and speak to her like I can."

Taking the bowl of blood-and-whatever from him, she nodded and allowed herself one last question, albeit asked with a less aggressive tone.

"And the sleeping?"

Jeremy gave a small smile like he knew the small skirmish was over.

"Your mind is more open when you're asleep. You accept things that would seem out of the ordinary if you were awake."

With another nod and a deep breath, Caroline walked over to the 'circle' and sat gingerly in the center. Wrinkling up her nose, she closed her eyes and dabbed the contents of the little bowl over her lids, then lay down. She tried to concentrate on relaxing her body as she listened to Jeremy walk around her, lighting the candles. Her lips quirked up and she felt her eyes begin to water behind her lids when the thought popped up that Bonnie could have simply lit them all at once with her mind.

Caroline was just about to give in to the urge to speak and dispel her oncoming grief when she heard Jeremy exhale forcefully and felt something like fine dust settle over her face. For a moment, she felt like her brain had shifted ever so slightly to the left, and then the floor seemed to be rotating. Feeling slightly nauseous, she rolled over to her side and gasped for breath.

When she opened her eyes, it wasn't the brick walls of the school basement that greeted her. She was back home and lying on her bed. But the best part was that Bonnie was there also, lying down, facing her. Reaching out, she traced her fingers down the side of Bonnie's face, unable to stop the tears from falling from her eyes.

"You're not supposed to be dead, you know. We're supposed to be roommates in college, and sisters forever, and you're supposed to fall in love and have babies I can spoil."

Bonnie grasped Caroline's free hand and gave a watery smile.

"I know. I didn't mean to leave you –any of you—I just didn't see any other way. But it didn't work out right, Caroline. It all went to hell like it always seems to."

With a deep breath and a firm nod, Bonnie sat up and seemed to pull herself together. Trying to bury the sense of unease growing within her, Caroline sat up as well.

"We can't make this go right from where we are. Too much has gone wrong and anyone that could help is either scattered to the winds, dead, incapacitated, or too caught up in a dysfunctional relationship. But I have a plan. It's dangerous, though, and I don't even know if it will work. We could all end up right back where we are now."

Feeling like she was missing something big, Caroline grabbed onto Bonnie's hand to get her attention.

"Bonnie, what are you talking about? What's going on that we need help so badly?"

Turning fully toward her, Bonnie took a deep breath and looked into her friend's eyes.

"Caroline, Silas isn't down like I thought. He's walking around pretending to be Stefan. He's getting too powerful and I haven't been able to do anything from this side."

Caroline couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her. How long had Stefan been gone? How long had an imposter been playing at being her friend? How could she have missed something so big? Reining herself in, Caroline let go of what she couldn't change and gave her full attention to Bonnie.

"What do we need to do?"

She listened with a mixture of growing trepidation and grim determination as Bonnie laid out her plan.

It was relatively simple; she was supposed to go back and make everything right. Try to keep as many people from dying as she could all while not fucking up the balance of the universe too much. No pressure or anything.

Ultimately, however, she was going back for one thing: She had to stop Silas from rising or find a way to kill him before he was able to fully awaken.

"I'm going to try and send you back as far as I can. I haven't figured out a way to give you all the information you'd need that I just don't have. Maybe if I had more time… But I can give you what I know now."

Getting up from the bed, Bonnie grabbed a pen and notepad and began writing. As she did so, she explained what she was writing.

"This is a list of objects you're going to need to get ahold of, and events that are going to _have_ to take place. People that will be important and people that you should avoid."

She looked up and into Caroline's eyes, almost apologetically.

"You're going to have to make sure that Klaus breaks his curse. There are ways to do it without anyone having to die permanently, but I don't know the details. You're going to have to figure out everything on your own. I wish I could help you more, but I'm desperate and we don't have any time."

Caroline covered Bonnie's now shaking hand with her own and tried to will confidence into her friend. A question occurred to her then that she wasted no time in asking.

"Are there any rules against telling people what's going on? I mean, we're already drastically changing timelines. Is there a reason it has to be a huge secret? You know, beyond avoiding any long talks with doctors who know nothing about the supernatural?"

The question stopped Bonnie and she genuinely looked like she had never thought of it.

"Well… no, there's no reason you can't tell someone."

Caroline offered a reassuring smile as she gently rubbed one of Bonnie's shoulders.

"Then I don't have to figure out everything on my own. You'll give me all you can, and then I can get help when I get back there. You'll even be one of the people helping me."

Glancing down at the notepad her friend was holding, Caroline tried to get them back on track.

"So, I'm going to wake up in the past clutching a list of random objects, people, and events. Am I even going to remember what's going on?"

Taking her cue from Caroline, Bonnie continued to write and explained that, since this was a dream, she wasn't actually writing on the paper, she was writing this list directly into Caroline's memory. She would retain her memories of this timeline as a vampire, though they would start to fade rather quickly if she was human.

"If you go back to before you were a vampire, you're going to have to find a way to get turned quickly."

Just as Caroline began to mentally catalog the ways she could get herself turned into a vampire, she heard the sound of movement from behind her. Whipping around and getting up off the bed, she stood between Bonnie and their uninvited guest.

"Last time I checked, I did not have an open dream policy where Mikaelson brothers were concerned."

Kol smirked from where he was comfortably leaning against her bedroom door.

"Now, darling, there's no need for alarm. I'm not here to hurt the little witch. Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm here to offer my services."

Knowing that any deal from his family came with strings firmly attached, Caroline wasn't quick to jump at his offer. Still, it was probably best to get him to expose what he wanted from them.

"And what, exactly, would you be getting out of this?"

Slowly moving away from the doorjamb, Kol stepped over to Caroline's dresser. Picking up the framed picture of Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena, he began answering her question as he ran his fingers along the edge of the frame.

"I get to make sure that none of my family –myself included—dies and ensure that Silas _does_ die."

Putting the picture back gently, he turned back to them with a serious expression on his face.

"All you have to do, Caroline, is make sure that the dagger is removed from me as soon as possible and tell me what you're planning. I can then share everything I know about Silas and how his followers operate, and I can even help you find and kill the bastard."

Caroline had a feeling that he was leaving out something. As tempting as it was to just blow him off, her gut told her that –whatever was really going on—she needed to know about it sooner rather than later.

"It would only make sense for me to try and get as much help as possible and, given that I know from your terrorizing of Jeremy that you know all about Silas, it would also only make sense that I would go to you for information. So what's this really about?"

Looking down with a slight chuckle and a shake of his head, Kol made his way over to the open closet to absently play with the scarves hanging on the door.

"I can see why my brother fancies you."

At this he glanced back over at Caroline.

"Or, would it be better to say, 'why he's so in love with you'? You are right, though, there is a bit more to the story. The twelve witches you killed aren't too keen on this mission. They don't have any faith in you –understandably so, I think you could agree. They have enough power to mess up Bonnie's little spell.

"I've managed to earn their trust and, if I should express my faith in your ability and willingness to truly kill Silas and make everything right, they won't mess things up. In fact, they'd be willing to lend their power to the cause."

This was the part where all the cards were laid out. Caroline figured that, since he led with what he could do for them, then whatever came next was more important to him than ending Silas or even getting the dagger out of his past self. Before she could tell him to cut to the chase, Bonnie spoke up.

"I doubt you're willing to do this out of the goodness of your heart or because you've suddenly developed a fondness for us. What do you want in return, Kol?"

Closing the distance to Caroline's bed in long strides, Kol grabbed the pad and pen that Bonnie had left and flipped to the next page. He turned to fully face them as he held the pen above the paper as if ready to begin writing.

"So, how this works is, I write down something in here, and it's engraved on her memory, right? So, I write a little message to my past self, and she can be a good little messenger vamp and deliver it for me. Nothing dangerous, or even particularly difficult. I'll also write a little personal fact here so that I'll know it's really a message from me and not some hoax a pretty young thing is trying to pull. Sound fair?"

A small shot of alarm ran through Caroline and she quickly turned to Bonnie.

"He can't, like, brainwash me that way, can he?"

Bonnie's eyes widen slightly at the thought, but she turned and put a re-assuring hand on Caroline's arm.

"The words will be in your memory, but you'll be able to tell they aren't yours. It would be like walking into your room and seeing someone else's jacket on your bed. It's there, but you know it's not yours. It will have a different _feel_ or _smell_ or something."

They both turned at Kol's small chuckle.

"Done this often, have you?"

With a slight sneer, Bonnie turned to him and rolled her eyes.

"I've talked with witches who have. Now, exactly what message are you wanting Caroline to deliver?"

With a small shift of the pen and notepad in his hands, Kol gave Caroline a questioning glance. At her reluctant nod, he began to write. As he did, he also began to speak in a carefully detached tone that let Caroline know that he was serious about what was in the message.

"I just want a small bit of information delivered. It's a way of… rebuilding bridges and fixing my family. Do that for me…"

Walking toward Caroline, he handed her the notepad with a smile.

"And I'll help you find and kill Silas."

Looking at the message written on the notepad, Caroline couldn't stop the small gasp that escaped her. She couldn't fault him for his motives.

"I'll deliver your message. Just… get the other witches to help."

With a rueful smile, Kol shrugged.

"Already done, darling."

At Caroline and Bonnie's shocked and upset faces, Kol's smile grew until he resembled a child who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar a few too many times.

"Whispering the ways I'm going to kill her into the ear of a girl who can't hear me got old really quickly. I spent a great deal of time watching the lot of you. I knew that you wouldn't mind doing something so simple in return for my help. Especially now that you and my brother are… _friends_."

The last was said with a world full of innuendo. Honestly, Caroline was getting tired of everyone commenting about what was going on between her and Klaus. Not that there was anything to comment on. Whatever.

As childish as it was, she took the time to stick her tongue out at Kol's retreating back. Turning back to Bonnie, she took a deep breath.

"Are we ready?"

Bonnie nodded her head, then gasped. She then relaxed and looked slightly more confident.

"The witches are on board, apparently. Now, I can't be sure of _exactly_ what time I'm sending you back to, but I can narrow it down to before the twelve witches died but after Stefan arrived in town."

At Caroline's questioning look, Bonnie explained further.

"Stefan arriving is about the time my powers started to kick in. It's the easiest time for me to focus on. Their death is easiest for the other witches to focus on. We just need to aim closer to my focus."

Leaning in, Bonnie gave Caroline a strong and desperate-feeling hug.

"I know you can do this, Caroline. If anyone can figure out how to re-organize time so that it comes out with less death and destruction, it's you."

Leaning back to look in Caroline's eyes, Bonnie gave her a very serious look.

"I'm going to try and aim for before you met Damon. I can't guarantee it, but I'm going to try. You ready?"

With a forced smile and a nod, Caroline braced herself.

"And me without a blue box or an alien with a hot accent," she said, unable to resist one last comment as she felt Bonnie's hands on her temples and the world started to fade away.

"I love you, Caroline."


	2. Not Quite the Beginning

Caroline's senses slowly came into focus again. The first thing she noticed was that she was lying face down in the grass. Her body felt heavy, almost like she had been drugged with vervain or bitten by a hybrid, and there was a pain in her neck that was all too familiar. She was either a vampire lying in the woods on her eighteenth birthday, or she was a human and suffering from the after-effects of one of Damon's tantrums.

Opening her eyes and slowly pushing herself into a sitting position, she discovered it was nighttime and that she was at Lockwood Manor. Given the lights and the distant sounds of talking, there was obviously a party going on. A glint of moonlight off something in the grass caught her eye and, as she began to painfully crawl over to investigate, she got an intense feeling of déjà vu. Lifting up the necklace that had caught her attention and running her thumb over the amber jewel in her hand, she felt irritation spread through her. She was human again.

"Not exactly the beginning we were hoping for, is it, Bonnie?"

Standing up with both the necklace and her clutch in hand, she sighed deeply and then shoved all her negativity into a box in the back of her head. She could deal with this; she could make it work for her.

"Caroline?"

Slipping the necklace into her purse, Caroline went over what she remembered from the night as she waited for Elena to reach her.

"There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

Lost in her memories, she didn't answer Elena right away, which seemed to worry the other girl.

"Are you okay?"

Shaking her head to clear it of the memories, Caroline turned to her friend. She couldn't help but smile at what she saw. This was Elena as she should be; human and without the cares of the world on her back. Granted, a bit worried right now and, if memory served, upset at Stefan, but still very human and caring. If Caroline had any say in it, this is how her friend would stay.

"Yeah, I'm fine. In fact, I'm better than I have been in a while."

She couldn't stop herself from reaching out a hand to gently squeeze Elena's shoulder.

"You don't have to worry about me, Elena. I can take care of myself."

Her mind jumped around looking for something to distract Elena from the worry and concern her expression was showing. Her mind latched onto the memory that Damon was currently being locked up in the Salvatore basement. Caroline chuckled scrunched up her face in mock embarrassment.

"I may need a ride home, though. My date seems to have pulled a disappearing act."

The ride to her house was very quiet. She knew Elena had a lot on her mind and was probably very confused about everything. From what she could piece together from snatches of conversation with Stefan and Elena –that now hadn't yet happened, and she just knew that was going to get confusing as hell –Elena still didn't know about vampires at this point.

While she would have to find out soon enough, it wasn't going to be from Caroline. Bonnie, however, was going to have to find out very quickly. A night's rest, and then she would head over to Bonnie's and convince her that they absolutely had to visit her Grams. After all, Caroline was a very smart young woman, and smart young women knew when they needed all the help they could get. Thankfully, it was a town holiday that apparently warranted there being a three day weekend.

First item on the agenda: Make sure that whatever hold Damon had on her mind that hadn't been broken by having a future version of her shoved into this body could be neutralized. Second item: Convince a couple of vampire-hating Bennett witches that her becoming a vampire was all for the best. Third item: Find out where the moonstone was hidden and snatch it up before Katherine could get her claws on it.

Katherine.

Caroline's mind was preoccupied with the first doppelgänger when Elena pulled up to her house. She said goodnight, got out of the car, and walked toward her front door. As she did so, she mentally weighed the pros and cons of trusting the woman who had, in another lifetime, smothered her in her hospital bed.

If she could somehow manage to trap her in the vampire tomb and then just convince her that her best chance of survival was to cooperate… That could be a long shot. However, none of it could be done in even relative safety until she talked to Bonnie's grandma and became a vampire again. A good night's rest was definitely in order, however, rest was something Caroline knew she wouldn't be getting that night. She had never really developed the ability to sleep on an unfinished plan –at least not until she was falling over and delirious from exhaustion.

Grabbing a pen and notebook from her bedside table, Caroline sat down on her bed and prepared for a long night's work, making sure to set her alarm clock so she could catch Bonnie early in the morning. First order of business: writing down everything Bonnie and Kol had put in her memory, though Kol's contribution went on a sheet of paper all its own and was placed in the back of her side-table drawer.

Countless plans were made, revised, and ultimately scrapped. By the time the morning sun began to shine through her windows, Caroline was surrounded by nearly the whole notebook's worth of crumpled up pages. Her alarm's buzzing distracted her from the frustration of her current doomed-to-fail plan. After silencing the clock, she quickly gathered all the discarded paper and threw it in the kitchen trash and then grabbed the keys to her mother's car.

Returning to her room, she picked up the list she had compiled from Bonnie's information. As she stared at it, she came to the decision that –for now—Bonnie would have to be left out of the loop. Going straight to Sheila Bennett would save her the trouble of having to explain the supernatural world to Bonnie and prove its existence, leaving more time to explain to Sheila that she had been sent back in time as well as to prove _that_. And, of course, there was the small matter of getting a couple of witches to help her become a vampire.

No pressure.

Taking a deep breath, Caroline –still in last night's party dress—decided to do this one step at a time. Starting with a shower.

During the shower, getting dressed, shoving her to-do list in a purse, and the drive, Caroline kept running over possibilities and ways everything could go wrong. As she pulled into Sheila's driveway, she came to at least one conclusion: She was going to have to network her cute little ass off to be able to do everything that needed to be done.

Caroline began to feel nervousness balling up her stomach as she made her way to Sheila's porch. She was sure that karma and the universe were off together having a laugh at her expense. She could clearly remember mocking the older woman; some of that mockery may have involved references to too much alcohol. Caroline had a feeling that there might be apologizing due, possibly even groveling. She could handle that. An awful person she might have been, but she was not about to let her pride get in the way of saving her best friend. And stopping a supernatural apocalypse, too, of course.

Caroline took a deep breath and raised her fist to knock. However, before she could do so, Sheila opened the door with an amused smile.

"Caroline Forbes, what brings you here?"

She had mentally prepared a speech that she was convinced would have the woman in front of her convinced and more than willing to help. Unfortunately, when she opened her mouth, that speech wasn't what came out.

"Some apologizing. A little bit of groveling. Some outrageous, yet true, tales to tell. And, sprinkled all in there, probably some begging."

With a raised eyebrow Sheila opened the front door further and motioned for Caroline to come in. Getting in the front door didn't actually lesson Caroline's nerves. In fact, it made her even more anxious. She sat down on the couch with what she hoped was a winning smile. When she saw a shot glass set down deliberately on the coffee table accompanied by a _very_ sardonic raised eyebrow, her smile slipped a bit as she realized how true her comments at the front door had been.

Turning her smile back up a few notches, Caroline jumped right in the deep end with, "So, we'll start right in with the apologizing and work our way to the groveling, then?"

Once she began, the words just kept pouring out. There were times when she wasn't even aware of what she was saying, she just knew that she had to get the story out. It didn't seem to have the desired effect on Sheila, however. Aside from a few moments of confusion, and a small moment of pleasure as she drank the tea that she had brought out for both of them, she mostly wore an expression that lived somewhere between amused and contemptuous. When Caroline stopped talking and just looked at her, she put down the mug she had been drinking from.

"So, how exactly did you convince Bonnie to go along with your idea to play a prank on her 'drunken old grams'?"

Caroline's confused expression seemed to only anger her, and Sheila stood up and walked around to the other side of the coffee table, as if she need the barrier to keep herself from shaking the teenager. Crossing her arms, she spoke with a pinched expression and an angry tone.

"Do not sit there and even think about lying to me, young lady! I can hear Bonnie's voice in your words as sure as if she was sitting there with you."

Caroline could feel the tears start to well up in her eyes as she realized that she was going to get no help here. A night of relentless planning and no sleep left her without the will to push through. Pressing her fingers to her temples, she begged for the one thing she thought that Sheila might help her with.

"You aren't going to help me because you don't believe me. I get it, it's a crazy story. Just… can you at least give me a way not to go running when Damon Salvatore calls?"

Perhaps some of her distress registered as genuine, because the woman across from her looked a little less pissed off.

"He's been feeding on me, and using me, and…"

She was overwhelmed by memories of painful bites she had been compelled not react to and of the fear she had not been allowed to feel, though it should have been there by all rights. Pushing them down, Caroline continued.

"He's been compelling me. They've got him locked up, but I know he's going to call for me, and I know I'm not going to be able to stop."

Looking up at Sheila, she couldn't stop the tears from falling.

"Please, I don't want to go to him."

As much as the part of Caroline that had told Stefan that she wasn't 'girly little Caroline anymore' would like it to be otherwise, she wasn't faking anything. Right now, the thought of being forced to go to Damon –especially as a human—was absolutely terrifying. She thought she had gotten past this. The nightmares had gone and she pretended that it wasn't as bad as it had been, just like everyone wanted. She could only blame the sudden resurgence of pain and fear on the shock of being human again.

Her tears continued to stream down her face, even as Sheila crossed over to the couch, sat down next to her, and took her hands. As soon as they made contact, a warmth flooded through Caroline and her eyes involuntarily closed. All at once it seemed as if everything would be all right, because that warmth was familiar. It was summer days and running through the grass pretending she could fly. It was being wrapped up in her mother's arms for the first time in forever and not having to hide what she had become. It was love and acceptance. It was…

A sudden, startled gasp and the disappearance of warmth interrupted her thoughts. When she opened her eyes, she was brought up short by the wide-eyed shock on Sheila's face. She was so thrown by that expression that she barely noticed the trembling hands that were making their way to the sides of her head.

With a shaking voice, Sheila explained, "I just need to look into your mind, Caroline. Just… I need to see…"

When it became obvious that the woman wasn't going to explain what it was she needed to see, Caroline nodded. She had come here for Sheila's help, after all, even if this wasn't all the help she had been looking for.

She felt slightly clammy hands brace on either side of her head, followed shortly by a rush of memories. These memories weren't of her human life, though. These were memories of seeing Bonnie's dead body and talking to her in the dream. Those memories came to an abrupt halt, though, as Sheila jerked back.

"You were telling the truth. Oh, good lord, sweetie, you were telling the truth."

Shaking her head and holding her hand over her heart, Sheila continued, "It wasn't just you that came back, though. There's a part of her in you, enough of my Bonnie that I could feel it."

Caroline didn't stop herself from reaching out to Sheila and wrapping her arms around the woman's shoulders when she began to cry, her hand over her mouth holding back sobs. Her own fears about Damon's inevitable pull on her were quickly buried under the need to comfort someone who felt the loss of her best friend even more keenly than she did.

When she could no longer stand to simply hold Sheila and not _do _something to ease her pain, Caroline reached a hand up and gently turned her head so that she could stare into her eyes, hoping she would understand how seriously Caroline took the promise she was about to make.

"I'm going to stop it from happening. She's not going to die. There are a lot of people who aren't going to die this time, but she is my top priority."

Collecting herself, Sheila reached out and grasped Caroline's hand, moving it to her lap, and held it tightly.

"_We_ are going to stop it."

Standing up and grabbing the mugs that sat on the coffee table in front of them, she started toward the kitchen, turning once to address Caroline.

"First, I'm going to refill our cups and pull myself together, then you're going to show me that list of yours and we're going to start planning."

For the first time since she had set out that morning, Caroline really began to feel hope. She wasn't alone in this, just like she had promised Bonnie she wouldn't be. Though, if she understood Sheila correctly, Bonnie had made sure of that by sending part of herself back as well.

Even if Caroline hadn't been determined to stop Bonnie from dying before this revelation, she would have been now. Along with thoughts of how strong and yet prone to self-sacrifice her best friend was, a new thought began to creep in. The Bonnie who had sent her back was a very different version of the Bonnie she would be interacting with now. While they had been friends before, there was a bond that had developed between them that, while Caroline could still feel it as strong as ever, Bonnie wouldn't feel at all.

Before she could think too much further on it, Sheila came back in carrying a tray with their mugs, a notebook, and some pencils on it.

"I figured we could write out what we need to do. Unless things have changed drastically between now and when you come from, the Caroline I know is very big on organization and writing out plans."

There was a more than small part of Caroline that felt like the lowest scum on earth right now. Obviously, Sheila paid attention to what went on in her granddaughter's life, and Caroline had just dismissed her as a drunken, tin-foil-hat-wearing flake. Caroline took a deep breath and reminded herself that regret did nothing to change the past so it was best to simply change the behaviors that caused that regret.

"First, I should make a list of all the things we need to collect and all the people we need to either keep an eye on or get on our side."

Eyes widening, Caroline remembered the amber necklace that she still had from the night before. Picking her purse up from where it sat at her feet, she removed the necklace and held it out to Sheila.

"Damon took this from the Lockwood place last night."

Watching as Sheila gasped and reached out to take hold of it, Caroline continued, "I know it belongs to your family. I also know that it was used to seal twenty some vampires in a tomb here in Mystic Falls almost a hundred and fifty years ago."

As Sheila looked up, still clutching the talisman in her hands, Caroline decided to take a risk and hope that Bonnie's gram really trusted her.

"I know you're going to want to give this to Bonnie, and I totally get that. But we need to find a way to contact Emily and make sure she doesn't come back to destroy it. She powered up this talisman using a passing comet. The same comet passed over earlier this month, activating the talisman which would enable it to be used to release those same vampires, just as Emily had intended."

At this, a look of confusion passed over Sheila's face. Before she could ask any questions, Caroline interrupted her.

"I know, why would Emily want the vampires set free? Apparently, Damon asked her to do this to save Katherine, the vampire I told you about who looks exactly like Elena. In exchange, he was supposed to protect her children."

Picking up her mug and taking a drink –being human again made long conversations a bit more difficult—Caroline continued her story.

"Anyway, Emily realized… or is _going_ to realize that releasing all those vampires on Mystic Falls is a very dangerous thing. She will then possess Bonnie and destroy the talisman. However, this won't stop Damon from forcing you and Bonnie to open the tomb without the talisman."

At this, Caroline stopped. She really couldn't bring herself to tell the woman sitting next to her that this was how she died. Fortunately, Sheila was both intelligent, and in possession of a cool head.

"I ended up dying from it, I assume."

Caroline could only nod.

"So then I also assume you have a plan to not only open the tomb, but do it in a way that won't get a lot of people killed. So, let's hear it."

Caroline and Sheila spent the greater part of the afternoon trying to put together workable plans for getting everything they needed and also making those plans work together. They also spent a great deal of time debating who needed to know what, and when they needed to know it. They were both in agreement that Bonnie needed to know everything as soon as possible.

She had a feeling that convincing Bonnie might not be all that easy.


	3. I Woke Up, You Walked Out

Caroline was exhausted, and it wasn't just from lack of sleep. She had been right when she thought that getting Bonnie to believe what was going on wouldn't be easy. It had taken Sheila physically grabbing Bonnie's arm and forcing her to grab hold of her friend to get her to admit that _something_ at least had changed.

The same warmth that had come over her when she was in contact with Sheila once again was there when Bonnie's hand covered her arm. As she looked into Bonnie's eyes, she finally figured out that the warmth was home. It was family.

After retelling her story –or rather, the bare bones of her story—and shedding a few tears over what had been lost, she left Bonnie and Sheila as they started to talk about the basics of magic. That really wasn't her area, and she had some family bonding to get an early start with, as well as some much needed sleep to finally catch up on.

Caroline entered her home and headed straight toward the kitchen, pausing only long enough to throw her purse on her bed after taking out her cell phone. Since the sheriff's squad car hadn't been in the drive when she pulled in, it was a safe bet her mother wasn't home yet, which meant that dinner definitely hadn't been started. Standing in front of the open cupboards, she dialed her mother's number and tried to decide what they should eat.

Later that night, still trying to swallow down the lump in her throat from the surprise and suspicion in her mother's voice and face at the unplanned and rare family night, she got ready for sleep and crawled into bed. Across town, while Caroline was dreaming of time paradoxes and the difference between what had happened and what was yet to happen, Sheila was pulling up in front of the Salvatore boarding house. On the passenger's seat, there was a black medical bag that contained some supplies she had procured from the hospital by less than ethical means.

Time was short and the necessity was high. There were a hand full of very powerful vampires on the way, and what they were doing would save lives and, hopefully, keep them from having to fight said vampires.

Pushing down the memory of her daughter running away from the fallout of such a fight, Sheila brought herself firmly back to the here and now. Grabbing the bag, she got out of the car and strode purposefully to the front door. This was not a time for doubt or fear, she had to make sure this vampire knew better than to cross her or her family. Regardless of how glowing Caroline's praises were, this was a different version of Stefan Salvatore.

With that in mind, Sheila didn't bother with knocking. In a show of power meant to intimidate, she forced the doors to open before she was near them, catching the approaching vampire by surprise. Pulling an air of superiority and condescension around her that she usually reserved for students who thought they could get an easy grade by taking her class, she walked through the doorway and past a very confused Stefan.

As she strode through the hallway and into the front room, she reached out with her senses and could feel him behind her like a cold void. She experienced a small pang at the thought of having Caroline feel like that. She mentally pushed down the thought with the knowledge that it was all for the greater good. She had to trust that, whatever else had happened to Bonnie, she hadn't been so far gone that she would send back someone who couldn't handle being a vampire.

"Let's skip the part where you pretend you don't know what I am."

Sitting down on a couch, she indicated the one across from her with a slight tilt of her head. When he sat down and raised an enquiring eyebrow at her –it could have been projecting, but she chose to believe it was an arrogant and condescending eyebrow raise—she placed the medical bag on the coffee table between them.

"We're also going to skip past the part where you try and pretend you're not a vampire. I'm not here to run you out of town, since I have it on very good authority that any trouble we've been having around here is not your doing. However, you being allowed to stay here and play at being a high-school student comes at a price. Specifically, your blood. It's a onetime transaction, non-negotiable."

With this she pushed the bag closer to Stefan, and he automatically reached for it. Opening it, he pulled out the red topped collection tube, tourniquet, and syringe. Putting the items back in the bag, he looked up at Sheila.

"What exactly will you be using this for?"

With her own raised eyebrow and a quirk of her lips she answered honestly, if a bit dryly, "Avoiding a small war, preventing a supernatural meltdown, and saving lives."

Stefan gave a small laugh and nodded his head as if to say that he didn't believe her but would play along.

"All of that with one dose of blood?"

Sheila tilted her head to acknowledge the absurdity of her answer before leaning forward a bit.

"The blood is just the first step, the rest you don't need to worry about." Gesturing toward the bag, she continued, "Now, can you do that yourself, or do you need some help?"

It turned out that Stefan was perfectly able to draw his own blood. When he was done, Sheila took the filled tube from him, placing it back in the bag while leaving the remainder of what she had brought for him to dispose of. Standing up, she held out her hand to shake, just to get her own feel for him. As his hand closed over hers, she felt a bone-deep chill that still lacked any malice.

"I'll trust you not to harm anyone in this town. However, if the vampire who is currently wasting away in your basement manages to get out and hurt Caroline, or anyone, again, you and he will have one pissed off witch to answer to.

"Also, you might want to convince Zach, who I know damn well is listening in, to take a vacation. Things are about to get very dangerous around here, especially for the family of anyone supernatural."

She turned toward the front hallway, where Zach was just coming around the corner with a sheepish look on his face.

"I'm going to need your number, though, in case I need you to invite anyone in." She interrupted his protest, "If I call you, Salvatore, follow my instructions to the letter, because it will be a life or death matter."

Knowing that she had said all she had come to say, she headed for the front door. However, she couldn't resist the urge to keep Stefan on his toes. Turning back with a completely deadpan expression, she fired one last parting shot.

"And those couches are absolutely hideous. You should really look into replacing them."

The entire car ride home Sheila wrestled with the thought of helping Caroline turn. It wasn't even her becoming a vampire that truly weighed on the witch's conscious, it was the thought of all the responsibility the teenager was taking on. She was just a baby; she should be thinking about boys, and clothes, and school, not breaking curses, saving lives, and preventing a supernatural shit storm from raining down on the world.

Staring at her own face in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, she had to question if she was really doing what was best, or if she was just being selfish. Was she only going along with this and letting Caroline take on this load so that she and her granddaughter would live? There was no way that she would be able to answer that question herself. As she slipped underneath her covers, she decided to have a long talk with the girl and see if there wasn't another way to do this.

Morning found Sheila still unsure about how right it was to let Caroline do all the heavy lifting. However, the girl in question was as far from unsure as anyone could get. Having been woken up by a phone call from Bonnie in which she was promised that her best friend would not leave her side during the upcoming car wash, she was no longer afraid of the looming specter of Damon Salvatore.

She even had a decent plan to snag the Gilbert watch from Elena's house. Granted, she would be using a combination of steamrolling over any objections to having girl's day and playing the sympathy card, but it was all for a good cause. All she needed to do was convince Elena to make a quick run for some random thing while Caroline stayed back to get everything ready for their female bonding.

Caroline hadn't counted on the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as Elena gave her pitying looks and kept eyeing the places that she knew had bruises and bites. It was because of that feeling that she really didn't have to fake the quaver in her voice or the water in her eyes. When it became too much, she told Elena that she needed a minute to herself and asked if Elena could make a run for the dip that she forgot.

Hearing the front door close behind her friend, Caroline took a deep breath and headed to Jeremy's room. Ignoring the overwhelming smell of teenage boy and sweaty clothes –was it an unwritten law that boys were not allowed to actually remove dirty laundry from their rooms?—Caroline searched as quickly as she could. After what seemed like forever, but was probably only ten minutes, she found it pretty much out in the open. Seriously?

By the time Elena got back, Caroline was camped out on the living room couch with everything set up –save the dip of course. The day went pretty smoothly after that, disregarding the _looks_ Elena would constantly give her. By the time she left for home, she had remembered why she and Elena were friends, even if they were not best friends.

The fun night was interrupted when she got a call from Sheila letting her know that she had the vampire blood they needed and a plan for how to turn her without anyone being the wiser. Caroline would be lying if she said that she wasn't relieved to have someone else helping her plan everything out. Especially considering that her plan had been to use the Gilbert watch to find a vampire to capture and drain. Not the most brilliant plan, but she was working with what she had while trying not to involve Stefan any sooner than necessary.

She got home that night just in time to find her mom cooking dinner. When Liz nervously explained that she was cooking for two just in case Caroline got back in time, Caroline could feel the guilt curling in her stomach. Yes, at times she had been a crappy daughter, she could freely admit that. However, things were going to change a lot sooner this time around. Beginning with more time spent alone together without arguing.

"Since you're not working tomorrow, I figured we could do a picnic in the park for lunch, just you and me."

Her mother was a lot of things, but oblivious was never one of them. She set down her fork and she finished chewing the heavily lemon flavored chicken –which Caroline had managed not to point out because she _was_ committed to being a better daughter—and raised a very suspicious eyebrow at Caroline.

"Now, either you're a pod person, or something is very wrong. I know we haven't been close, but I'd like you to tell me if there is something bad enough that you feel the need to work this hard at being a family."

And there was the guilt again. She couldn't share everything with her mom –at least not yet—but she could do her best not to lie. However, she found herself unable to meet her mother's eyes as she began to explain.

"Recently, I've been through a very rough patch. Some very bad things have gone down that I will explain to you one day. Soon. Just… coming through the other side of it, I realized that there were a lot of things that I didn't like about myself."

At this point, though she knew it would probably lead to her crying, Caroline looked up at her mother to make sure that she knew this was a real thing, not just a passing phase.

"One of those things that I didn't like was how hard I made it for you to be my mom. I decided that I needed to change that."

When the tears started, Liz was up and around the table, throwing her arms around her daughter without hesitation. Caroline wrapped her arms around her mother in return prayed that she could keep this and not lose it after she turned and her mom found out. Pulling back and gently wiping under her eyes, she changed the subject with a slight laugh.

"Next weekend I won't be able to do this. Bonnie and I are doing a bonding weekend at her grams' house. I'm trying to be a better friend as well."

After the emotional interruption, dinner –and the rest of the evening—went on without incident. The next night, however, Caroline received an unwanted visitor.

She was talking on the phone with Tiki and doing a pretty good job of ignoring the fact that this was a conversation she had already been through when she heard a familiar, if roughened voice. Looking up into the mirror, she saw the shadow of a man. When she turned around and no one was there, she remembered all too well what was happening. Quickly getting off the phone, she made her way over to her bed and waited with the large throw she had placed there earlier and the cage she had bought for the occasion.

It didn't take long before Damon's pet crow showed up. Caroline didn't respond when it cawed at her, she only stared at it. When it got frustrated that she wasn't following, it flew over to land on her bed. She quickly threw the blanket over the bird and wrestled with it until she was sure there would be no escape. She then maneuvered the crow –blanket and all—into the cage at her feet. The entire time Caroline was attempting all of this, the crow never stopped cawing. The noise, of course, caught her mother's attention.

Thank goodness she was good at planning ahead. Her mother seemed a bit off-put by her daughter's story about a stalker crow and having plans to take it to the vet –because who knew if it was someone's pet—but she didn't seem suspicious.

One day, she wouldn't have to lie to her mom.

The following day at the car wash, just as Caroline had feared, Damon did try and call her. However, though she felt it, she was more than able to resist the pull. She and Bonnie both decided it had to be because of the part of Bonnie –the other Bonnie… future Bonnie… they really hadn't decided what to call her—had sent back with Caroline to protect her. They both also decided it would still be best to run their theory past Sheila.

"I do need to head over there, though, to make sure Zack doesn't go down to the basement and accidently free Damon."

At this, Bonnie shook her head and reassured Caroline, "No need. Grams convinced Zach that he needed to take a vacation. Though she did tell him that he needed to stay in touch for invite purposes. He drove out of town this morning."

Caroline didn't even bother to try to hide her impressed grin.

"Your grams is a bit of a badass, you know that."

Bonnie nodded solemnly, though the effect was spoiled by the grin trying to break through her serious facade.

"It's a Bennett trait."

There was a small moment of panic later on when Bonnie first drenched Tiki and then set fire to water and torched a car. Okay, maybe a bit more than a _small_ moment. More like a panicked fleeing quietly from the scene which Caroline covered for. Later that night, when Caroline dropped Damon's crow off at Sheila's, Bonnie was there. Bonnie let her know that she was fine and was now focusing on controlling her emotions in regards to her magic.

Caroline stopped herself from mentioning how much alike it was for new witches and new vampires when it came to that.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Caroline found herself relieved when she saw Vicki roaming the halls at school. When Bonnie noticed, she had to explain about what had happened to the other girl. She was quick to reassure her that there would be none of that this weekend.

"Vicki only had her instincts and a monster to guide her when she woke up not knowing what she was. I have experience with this, and I know exactly what I'm getting into. Plus, I have you and your grams there to help me!"

Though Caroline did her best to reassure Bonnie, she was haunted by the memory of how her friend had abandoned her before. She knew that it wasn't done maliciously, but it still hurt. She could only hope that the lack of killing would stop that from happening this time.

Wednesday found Sheila on her front porch wearing a lovely purple top and a very serious expression. After coffee was poured –the Forbes household did not run on tea—Sheila cut right to the chase. Apparently, Jeremy was right when he had said that this wasn't Sunnydale –adults didn't just casually hand over responsibility for saving the world to teenagers. When she began talking about how she didn't feel right leaving a teenager to do so much alone, Caroline had to stop her.

"The thing is, I'm _not_ doing this alone. When I first turned, there was one was there for me to teach me how to control myself. No one was even there to tell me what I was. But this time around, I know what is going on."

Reaching across the table for Sheila's hands, Caroline continued, "I may be the one who was sent back with all this information, but I have you and Bonnie to help me figure out how to get this all to work. This is not a one woman show, so I need you to understand that you're not pushing off anything on me. We're in this together, you've made sure of that."

Sheila stayed a bit longer after that to explain the plan for the weekend. Apparently, the cover story was that Sheila was taking Bonnie to the college so she could see exactly what her grams did, and Caroline was there for moral support and to make sure that the two got enough shopping time in. The former was Sheila's idea, the later was Caroline's.

Early Friday evening, as she was downing a tube of Stefan's blood and watching Sheila prepare some vile concoction she promised would put Caroline to sleep and kill her before the blood could heal her, she found herself once again worried that Bonnie would not handle her turning very well. She quickly gulped down the fatal brew, handed the glass back to Sheila, and laid down. Holding out her hand to Bonnie and smiling when her friend squeezed tightly, she drifted off to sleep.

As Caroline's body died and the vampire blood went to work changing her, Sheila and Bonnie took turns watching over their friend. Someone had to be awake when she came to in order to ensure she drank from the blood bags they had been filling with their blood all this week. Bonnie hadn't felt right stealing the bags from the hospital, so they had compromised. In the early hours of the morning, Bonnie woke her grams up for their shift change and drifted off to sleep facing Caroline's sleeping –don't think dead, never think dead—body on the other bed.

When the dream came, it was vivid and awful. Bonnie made her way through a large and unfamiliar house. It felt like one of the ostentatious homes that the richer founding families would live in. Coming to a door at the end of a long corridor, she felt dread settle in. She knew that she didn't want to open the door, but she also knew that she had to face what was on the other side.

Quickly yanking open the door, Bonnie felt a scream catch in her throat. In the middle of the floor lay a black man who looked to be in his thirties. However, it was very hard to tell because of the blonde-haired woman crouched over him with her face buried in his neck as she growled. Bonnie tried to back out, but she must have made some noise, because the woman looked up.

It was Caroline.

It was Caroline, but it wasn't. It was a beast who may have once looked like Caroline, but no longer. Her eyes were somewhere between black and red and she had fangs. The worst part, though, was that her entire lower face was covered in blood. This wasn't Caroline, this was some demon impersonator, and she had helped it kill!

Bonnie's heart was pounding in her chest when she woke up. Blinking open her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of her grams handing a blood bag to Caroline. However, when Caroline turned, it wasn't the concerned face of a friend she saw. The only thing she could see was Caroline's face covered in blood as she crouched over her victim.

Scrambling off side of the bed farthest from her best friend, Bonnie stood for a moment, frozen and torn.

"I'm sorry. I just… I can't…"

Unable to finish, she raced to the door, grabbing her grams' car keys on the way. She wanted to support her friend, but she couldn't with that nightmare fresh in her head.


	4. A Time of Indecision

Bonnie thought it was fitting that she had driven straight to the graveyard. After all, one of her best friends was dead and she had helped to kill her. It was too late for regrets, but that didn't stop the guilt or the doubts that filled her as she stared at the rows of headstones through her windshield. Not only doubts about her current decisions, but doubts about whatever version of her existed in the future Caroline had been sent back from.

She didn't even try to stop the half-hysterical burst of laughter at that last thought. She was in some fucked up version of a Terminator movie, playing the part of Sarah Connor, with Caroline playing her Kyle Reese. For a moment she had to wonder how they would end up with John. Reality quickly and ruthlessly set back in, however, and she had to put some serious thought into what had sent her running from her friend.

That damn dream.

Could she really work with Caroline if, as a vampire, her friend could do that to another person? How could she justify that? Of course, hot on the heels of that question, she had to ask herself if she could trust that Caroline wouldn't go after her or Grams.

Taking a deep breath, Bonnie got out of the car and walked into the cemetery. She had no real destination in mind and no specific graves she wanted to visit. She wasn't coming here to talk to some long dead relative to get their opinion. She had come here to get away from everyone else and think. She had jumped right into this plan, going along with whatever Grams and Caroline had said, and she hadn't really stopped to think about how she felt about it.

Her gut told her to trust in Grams and Caroline, that they were doing what they thought was best. But she couldn't help but doubt. How was turning her best friend into a monster the best course of action? More than that, though, Bonnie had her doubts about the other version of herself. And she knew from all that Grams had taught her recently that all those doubts could be her downfall.

Grams had stressed that a witch who didn't believe in herself, didn't believe in her magic, risked losing it. She didn't feel that power, though –didn't feel whatever it was that inspired such confidence in her from Caroline.

Shaking her head, she started back to the car. This wasn't where she needed to think. She needed to confront her worst fear: being betrayed by the vampire she was supposed to be putting her trust in. She had to talk to Emily. According to what Caroline had told her and Grams –and she didn't miss the irony in using information Caroline had given her to find out if she could trust her—the best place to do that would be where a large number of witches had died. She knew that at least one had died because she had been betrayed by a vampire she trusted.

The only place she felt sure that she could get in touch with Emily would be at the old abandoned house that, according to Caroline, was a witches' burial ground. This was her life now; getting advice from long-dead witches about her vampire friend and her future self.

Bonnie drove as far into the woods as she could before what little road there was became too overgrown. Getting out of the car, she began walking into the trees, opening herself up to try and find exactly where the abandoned home was. It didn't take long before the ruins of the house came into view. As she approached the pillars in the front, she saw a figure standing in the doorway. Just as she recognized the young woman from the picture of Emily Bennett that Grams had shown her, the figure turned and walked through the slowly opening door.

"This is the part in the horror movie where I'm yelling at the screen for the girl to run the other way."

Ignoring her own advice –after all, she had come to talk to dead witches—Bonnie made her way through the door as well. While part of her did notice the rotting wood and the boarded up windows, most of her focus was on the ghost in front of her.

"You've come here with questions, Bonnie. But you already know the answers."

While the smile on Emily's face was benign and something close to affectionate, Bonnie couldn't help but feel uneasy. However, she hadn't come all this way just to turn and run.

"I really don't have the answers, though. I have questions, and I have doubts. How am I supposed to know who to trust, and if what I'm doing is the right thing?"

Emily's expression turned cold, and her voice became almost monotone.

"Do not trust the vampire. She will only release the others, and death will follow."

Bonnie could feel anger and frustration welling up inside her. She knew why Emily would take this view, but there was so much at stake.

"This is about more than the vampires in that tomb, this is about more than Katherine betraying you. This is about the original vampires coming after my friend, and about some ancient immortal rising up and wreaking all kinds of havoc. He's going to lower the veil between worlds and destroy the natural balance. I mean… aren't we supposed to be servants of nature, protect the balance?"

She could feel a tight ball of emotion welling up in her throat and tears burning in her eyes. Emily seemed unmoved, though.

"You do not need the vampire to maintain balance. Vampires cannot be trusted. She will betray you."

The thought of Caroline betraying her triggered an automatic denial within Bonnie. This was her friend. Right after the denial, though, came the memory of her vision. Caroline was a vampire, and vampires could and did kill. She saw Caroline killing a man.

"I just… I need to…"

Confusion spiraled through her. She found herself pacing back and forth, arguments running through her head. Emily had to be wrong. If she didn't need Caroline, then why would Caroline have been back here? Why would she have _sent_ Caroline back? Stopping in her tracks, she turned back to Emily.

"If I didn't need Caroline, if she couldn't be trusted, then why would I send her back?"

Again, Emily remained unmoved.

"It does not matter why she was sent back. She is a vampire, and you cannot trust her."

Anger began to override her confusion. No matter what she said, Emily's answer remained the same. But she needed an answer, not the same phrase repeated at her again and again.

"If I can't trust her, why did I send her back?"

Before Emily could repeat her mantra again, Bonnie nearly growled out, "Don't. I don't want to hear 'it does not matter'. It matters. If I couldn't trust Caroline, why would _I_ send her back? Why would she be sitting in that motel room with a…"

Suddenly, it hit Bonnie how important it was that Caroline was carrying around a piece of her soul. Her Grams had all but implied that the only way that could happen is if she truly did trust Caroline in whatever future she came from. At some point, she trusted Caroline with both her soul and everyone's lives. Her voice, when it came out again, was very calm.

"I sent her back to save everyone. _I_ trusted her. I trusted her so much that I sent her back with a piece of my soul."

The tears that had been threatening now spilled over.

"When you stand there and tell me that I can't trust Caroline, that's not all you're saying. You're telling me that I can't trust myself. That I shouldn't have faith in myself."

Grams' first lesson rushed to the front of her mind, and she repeated it automatically.

"A witch must have faith in her power, in herself. When a witch doubts herself and her power, she risks losing her power."

Shaking off the near trancelike state that had overcome her, Bonnie continued on, "You're asking me to doubt myself, when that's the last thing I can afford. I can't risk Silas getting free and lowering the veil just so that you can have your revenge. That's not what's right. It's not what will maintain the natural order."

Taking a deep breath, Bonnie could feel the beginnings of peace take root in her mind.

"I don't need to trust Caroline right now. I need to trust myself, to trust in my own judgment."

Looking around the ruins, Caroline addressed the witches she couldn't see but knew were there.

"I need _you_ to trust in me and stand with me. I have so much I need to do, and I can't do it alone. I need all of you to lend me your power and trust that what I do is in the service of nature. I need you to trust that I'm going to do what is right.

There had been no answer, but Bonnie had felt a warm sensation wrap around her. When she looked at Emily again, the young woman's expression was no longer cold, but instead appeared content. Knowing that she had found the answers she had come for, Bonnie left the house and made her way back to her Grams' car.

Before starting up the engine, she picked up her phone and sent a text to Caroline, asking if she was still at the motel and telling her that they needed to talk. She spent the drive back thinking about exactly what she needed to say. While she didn't think it would be what Caroline wanted to hear, the air needed to be cleared.

Grams had already left by the time Bonnie got there, though she was no doubt close by. This was something that she and Caroline needed to do alone. When she opened the door and saw the mixture of fear and hope on Caroline's face, however, she wished that Grams were in the room to make this all better.

Crossing over to sit at the foot of the bed that Caroline was sitting on, Bonnie took a deep breath to gather her courage.

"I ran out this morning, because I had a dream. But… it wasn't just a dream, it was a vision. In it, I saw you killing a man. So, I panicked and left."

Caroline's face showed equal parts dread and resignation, and her voice was soft.

"I can't guarantee that I won't kill anyone this time around. The first time I did, there were deaths that could have been avoided."

At this, her expression changed to determination and she continued with a firmer voice, "But there were people I killed that, if the circumstances were the same, I wouldn't hesitate to kill again. I'm not proud of that, and I _do_ feel guilty, but I did it to save someone I loved."

Bonnie could feel the tears starting to spill down her face. She had been afraid of hearing something like that, but now that she had, it didn't horrify her like she thought it would. Reaching across the space between them, she gently grabbed Caroline's hands in her own.

"I don't know if I can really trust you. I'm going to have my doubts about you, I can't help that. But, right now, I'm making the choice to trust myself. At some point, I trusted you enough to give you a piece of my soul. I have to believe that I wouldn't do that unless I was completely sure of you. I'm not there yet, but I have to believe in myself."

The sight of Caroline's tears left Bonnie feeling raw and helpless. She wanted to so much to take back her words, swear that she trusted her friend completely. But she had to be honest, for both of their sakes. When the emotion became too much, she quickly moved up the bet to sit next to Caroline and wrap her arms around her friend.

"I don't mean to hurt you, it's the last thing I want to do."

She felt Caroline turn and wrap her arms around her. She then heard a sob before Caroline's voice came out soft and unsure.

"We got past this before, and it was much worse. We'll be fine."

Holding onto Caroline tighter, she reached up and ran her hand over her blond curls.

"We'll make it through this together."

Even as she said the words as an automatic platitude, she realized that she truly believed them. At some point, between talking to Emily and arriving here, she had not only decided to believe in herself, but had actually _made_ that leap of faith. They would be okay. It would take some time, but they would get there eventually.

A short time later, Sheila walked into the motel room with a bag of take-out food and found the two girls wrapped up around each other and fast asleep. While their faces still looked wet with tears, they both seemed at peace in their sleep. She was all too aware, though, that this was only the first hurdle.

It wouldn't be the hardest one to surmount either.


	5. Let It Go, Let It Change

Caroline toyed with the corner of the foam board birthday sign on her locker. One of these years she was going to give up waiting for other people to plan her birthday parties for her. She went all out for her friends, and she was happy to. However, _she_ got a decorated locker two days after her birthday. Okay, it would have been kind of hard to give her a decorated locker on her birthday this year since it was on a Saturday. It wasn't really the lack of a big party that upset her though, it was the fact that they knew she loved parties, but they didn't even _think_ that she would want someone to plan a party especially for her.

If she were being honest with herself –and it was something she had been trying to be—her mood wasn't really about her birthday or the level of give and take in her friendships. Getting out her morning books and closing the locker, she had to admit to herself that she was feeling overwhelmed. She knew there were things she was forgetting, something important that she had overlooked. She had pored over her notes endlessly this past week, though that was mostly in a bid to fight off the newbie vampire cravings, and she still hadn't figured out what it was that she was missing.

So far, she had been lucky. While she had realized she couldn't turn in her own home, she hadn't really planned on how to get an invitation in without it seeming suspicious. Thankfully, her mother had come home while she was sitting on their porch trying to figure out how to get in. Seeing the expression on her daughter's face, Liz had assumed something was bothering her. She had told her daughter to come in, have some ice cream, and they could talk about it.

While it had felt good to talk to her mom about how her friendship with Bonnie seemed to be on rocky ground –without any real details, of course—she knew that they couldn't rely on her being lucky all the time. She had to be more proactive in figuring out all the information Bonnie didn't, or couldn't give her before sending her back.

Hearing the unmistakable sound of Elena and Bonnie coming up behind her, she made a quick decision: She needed more help, so it was time for other people to be let in on the secret. Well, let in on _some _of the secret. She'd keep the time traveling to herself for now. Spinning around with a beauty queen smile firmly in place, she put her plan into action.

"Just the two I wanted to see. Given the severe lack of party in my birthday celebrations so far, you owe me. Tonight, meet me at my house, and I'll let you know where we're going from there."

Caroline could see Elena preparing to weasel her way out of it. However, she was not above guilt tripping her friend. What was the point of having a mean girl attitude in your arsenal if you didn't occasionally use it to get your way?

"I'm sorry, Caroline, I can't come. I'm supposed to be going over to Stefan's. We have some things to talk about."

As much as Caroline was all for Elena and Stefan's epic love, some things were more important than date night.

"I'm sorry, Elena, who is it that has been planning your birthday party every year since forever and has yet to have her friends plan her one?"

While the people pleaser in Caroline wanted to sooth away the guilty look on both her friend's faces, she was on a mission and couldn't afford to be merciful. The Queen of Mean had to take over.

"You both owe me. Tonight, after school, my place. And, since I'm so understanding, you can bring the boy toy along."

Both girls nodded in somewhat reluctant agreement and turned to leave. However, before Bonnie could get far, Caroline grabbed her hand to get her friend's attention. Leaning in close, she spoke low enough so that the other students in the hall couldn't overhear.

"Call your Grams and let her know we're coming over after school. It's time we started letting some people know what's going on."

Before Bonnie could ask what had brought this on, Caroline gave a large grin, waved, and strode off to her first class. During that class –and all the other classes as well—Caroline couldn't keep her mind off who she would be telling about her vampire status, and who she _wouldn't_ be telling. While her mother had come around before, there was no guarantee that would happen this time. Of course, there were key parts of their plans that hinged on her mom being in the know, so there wasn't really a choice.

Waiting at her house later that afternoon with Bonnie, Caroline could admit to being a bit nervous. Of course, given that both of them knew about vampires –Stefan being one was a plus in this situation—and neither of them were vampire haters, this would probably be the easiest confession she would have to make. That didn't mean she didn't still have memories of Elena being too busy to be there for her. Yes she had good reason at the time, but it still stung.

Looking over at Bonnie, she reassured herself that, like with Bonnie, her relationship with Elena would not hit that big of a snag. Caroline chose to ignore the fact that Bonnie was still a bit cold to her. Again, with reason but painful nonetheless. Who it was that Caroline was supposed to be killing in Bonnie's vision was still a mystery, and the witch wasn't really comfortable talking about it yet. Taking a deep breath, Caroline did her best to remember that she was trying to be patient with her friend.

Hearing Elena's SUV pull up in front of her house, she motioned to Bonnie and headed to the door. When they got to the porch, Elena and Stefan were just beginning to get out of the vehicle.

"Get back in the car, losers, we're going to granny's house."

She could see Stefan come to a dead stop and watched as a mild look of panic crossed over his face. Much like when she told him once upon a time that wasn't going to happen now, this one didn't really stray far from his 'hey, it's Tuesday' look either.

"I, uh… I can't really go. I was just going to stop by and say a quick hi. I've got some stuff I have to take care of."

As excuses went, it was lame. Of course, if she didn't know why he really didn't want to go, she would have thought it was nice of him to make his excuses in person. However, he wasn't going to get out of it that easy.

"Sorry, Stefan, you're going to have to take care of whatever it is some other time. Grams is expecting you."

While he did seem confused and suspicious, Stefan got back into the passenger's seat and didn't try to talk his way out of the visit any more during the ride. The only person in the vehicle that didn't seem tense or nervous was Elena. Of course, once she found out what was coming for her, she would be more tense and nervous than all of them put together.

For a moment Caroline entertained the fantasy of going back in time and stopping Klaus' mother from cursing him in the first place. How many lives would be saved? How many would be lost? Of course, if there was no curse, Katherine would never have been a vampire on the run, and would never have turned Stefan and Damon. There would have also been no one turning her. It was all pointless to wonder about anyway. It took a lot of power just to send her back _this_ far, it would probably take more power than they could get hold of to send her back a thousand years.

Caroline was pulled out of her thoughts when the ignition cut off. Putting on a wide smile, she stepped out of the vehicle and made her way to the front porch. After knocking on the door, she turned to hurry the others along. Stefan, of course, was bringing up the rear. When Sheila opened the door and saw Caroline's bright smile, she gave a small smirk in return. As she made her way to one of the chairs Sheila had brought into the front room for the occasion, she heard the witch make a point to invite Stefan in.

When everyone was in the house, Sheila sat in the chair next to Caroline, while Bonnie, Elena, and Stefan all sat on the couch. The latter two looked extremely confused, so Caroline decided to take pity on them and get started.

"As you can probably tell, this isn't exactly a birthday party. It's more like a supernatural roll call slash 'oh, by the way, some vampire heavyweights are going to be making their way to town' kind of a meeting."

Even before she finished, Bonnie was widening her eyes and mouthing her name.

"It's like pulling off a Band-Aid, Bonnie. It's less painful if you do it quick and all at once."

Turning to back to Elena and Stefan, Caroline continued, "Bonnie and Grams are witches, Stefan and I are vampires, and Elena is a doppelgänger."

With each person Caroline spoke of and gestured to, Elena's eyes got wider and her jaw began to drop a little in shock. Stefan's face had gone blank, though. He hadn't lost his voice, nor his ability to connect the dots.

"That's why Sheila wanted my blood: She wanted to turn you. But why turn you, and how long exactly have you been a vampire?"

Grateful that they were starting with the easy questions first, Caroline answered with a smile.

"Shelia need a vampire she knew she could trust because, as I said before, there are some very dangerous vampires on the way. As for when… I turned around the beginning of the month. Shortly after Sheila got the blood from you and I stole the pocket watch from Jeremy's room."

At this, Elena shook free of her stupor, moved forward to the edge of her seat on the couch, and began her questioning.

"First off, doppelgänger? Second, what do you mean you stole the pocket watch from Jeremy's room? Why would you do that?"

Before she could try to defend her _minor_ foray into criminal behavior, Sheila stepped in to explain what was going on, minus a few bits here and there. Caroline sat back in her chair and nodded along, as if everything had been Sheila's plan to begin with. When she, Bonnie, and Sheila had discussed how things were going to go, they decided that until Klaus and Elijah made their appearances –or they decided to let everyone know about Caroline's back to the future experience—it would be easier for everyone to accept that Sheila was the one who had gotten all the information and set everything into motion.

It took hours to get them both to believe what was going on and to believe that there was a good plan in place to make sure no one died and stayed dead. After a small moment of panic, though, it was easy to assure Elena that no one was planning on turning her into a vampire. Caroline only had a small twinge of guilt over the fact that, even though they told Stefan and Elena that there was an elixir to bring her back after the ritual, they neglected to tell them that they hadn't actually found the elixir yet. She was able to keep from blurting this out by remembering that, if worse came to worst, Elijah had the elixir they needed. She really didn't want to rely on him, though.

What she wasn't able to keep herself from blurting out, though, was the fact that Elena was adopted. There were days where she thought that her blunt and straightforward approach to most things was an asset. This was not one of those days. Given that she had just thrown that out there without any smoothing over or preparation, she felt that Elena handled it damn well. There were some hugs, a few teary apologies, and then Sheila let them know that there was still more than needed to talk about.

Elena was only too happy to hand over the necklace Stefan had given her in exchange for a new one –also filled with vervain, of course—once she learned that a witch that had been dead for a thousand years might use it to try and come back to kill off all vampires. Even thinking that, along with everything else that was going on, made Caroline feel like she was in a cheesy B-grade horror movie.

It was dark before the discussion began to wind down. As Stefan helped Sheila gather up the cups they had been drinking from, Elena started to question Caroline about how being a vampire was different from being a human. While she answered readily enough, she began to wonder if Elena had ever put these same questions to Stefan. Before she could give in to her urge to ask, Sheila walked back into the room, followed closely by Stefan.

"Saturday, I'll be heading to North Carolina. There's a witch there who knows the location of something we can use as a bargaining chip with Klaus."

She turned to Bonnie, her expression softening slightly, and asked, "Are you wanting to come with me?"

Bonnie's expression, unlike her grandmother's, was almost stony. She shook her head in reply. Caroline reached out to hold her hand, knowing that it was too soon for her to confront her mother, even knowing now _why_ her mother had left. Caroline thought that it possibly hurt worse, knowing that her mother had left because she was without magic, as if her daughter wasn't enough of a reason to face living with the memory of that magic. She could only hope that Bonnie and her mother had a chance to bond this time around without any dire circumstances or vampirism involved.

Shortly after, Elena drove Bonnie and then Caroline home. Caroline had a feeling that Elena would either be inviting Stefan home with her, or staying at the boarding house that night so they could talk more about what was going on. She, however, had no plans to think about it anymore that night. She didn't think about it anymore for most of the week either, despite Elena's obvious attempts to steer conversations in that direction.

Friday morning, however, she did think about it. Watching from beside a parked bus, she waited for Tyler to pull away from his fellow jocks and make his way back to the school. As he passed by her, she quickly grabbed him and pulled him out of the view of other students, moving too fast for any of them to see what had happened.

"I'm sorry, Tyler, but this is something I have to do."

While he looked confused and a bit annoyed, he didn't look at all afraid. Caroline sent up a quick thank you to whatever it was in him that made him either dismiss the fact that he had just been moved faster than humanly possible or miss it happening all together. Before he could question what she was doing, Caroline made eye contact and compelled him to skip class with her and head back home. Following Tyler in her car on the way to Lockwood Mansion gave Caroline time to contemplate the fact that she didn't really feel all that guilty for compelling Tyler so that he could show her where the moonstone was located.

This was her life now. Caroline reasoned that she had to let go of certain levels of guilt in order to survive and function in a manner that would help her friends. It was this urge to help those she cared about that made her decide that she was going to do everything she could to ensure that Tyler's werewolf gene was never triggered, and that he never got involved in all of this supernatural business.

She realized that this meant that she and Tyler would never be together and he would never fall in love with her, however, he would have the possibility of a happy and _normal_ life, free of painful changes and sire bonds. As her eyes began to tear up, Caroline realized that she had never contemplated what she would lose with this plan. She and Tyler were supposed to finally have a chance to be together but, in order for that to happen, she would have to open him up to a world of pain and suffering. She couldn't do that to him, she had to let him go. It was for the best.

By the time they arrived at Tyler's home and Caroline opened her car door, no one would have been able to tell that she had been on the verge of crying. When necessary, she was very good at pushing down everything else in order to get done whatever needed to be done.

Listening carefully for any sound from inside the house as Tyler unlocked his door, Caroline found that, thankfully, both of his parents were away from home. While Tyler had told her about finding the moonstone, she had never thought to ask _where_ the hiding spot had been. It hadn't really crossed her mind that she would find herself sent back in time and needing to get her hands on the moonstone before anyone else did. After the front door had closed, Caroline turned to Tyler and caught his eyes once more.

"Tyler, is there a secret hidey-hole or safe your family would keep very important family heirlooms in?"

Tyler stopped and thought for a moment before he nodded his head and said in a nearly monotone voice, "There's a safe hidden in the floorboards."

Ignoring the creepy feeling she got at his tone –this was all for the best, after all—she smiled and took his hand.

"Take me to the safe and let's see if we can open it."

Luckily, it turned out that Tyler knew the combination. The first box that Caroline opened –its scrimshawed starburst gleaming dully against the aged ivory—didn't contain the moonstone. Instead, she recognized what she found inside as part of the compass Damon had her use to find a vampire the first time around. God, she was an idiot. She should have realized that the pocket watch she had taken from Jeremy's room didn't look the same; it was missing a piece. Slipping the device piece into her purse and replacing the box, Caroline continued rifling through the floor safe until she came upon the last possible hiding place for the moonstone.

Lifting the square wooden box with its engraved heraldry on the lid, Caroline sat back and sent up a small prayer to whoever would listen that this would be it. When she opened the box she found the moonstone resting in a nest of fur –how appropriate and yet tacky. Slipping the rock into her purse, she then placed everything back in the safe and closed it up.

Standing up and walking over to Tyler, she looked in his eyes and gave him one last order.

"You won't remember I came here. If someone asks and implies that they know I was here, you'll suddenly remember that I cornered you and nagged you until you were forced to bring me here so I could check something out that was supposed to help me with the planning of some town function or something. If they press you, you'll tell them you don't remember exactly what it was because you honestly didn't care, you only brought me to shut me up."

As Caroline drove back to school, she was feeling very good about her plans. So far, she had everything she needed. Now she just needed to take the moonstone, find Emily's grimoire, open the tomb, make sure only Pearl got out, and then wait for John Gilbert, Isobel, and Katherine to show up. Thank god she wasn't doing this alone, because when she actually thought about all that had to be accomplished, it seemed like an impossible task.

Caroline was both so cocky from her success thus far and so engrossed in what she still had to do that she missed the fact that she and Tyler had been followed. In a car idling a short distance from the mansion, Vicki Donovan sat gripping the steering wheel tight and fighting back tears.

She had followed Tyler at the school, hoping to get him alone to try and convince him that they should get back together. For a second she had lost sight him, but then she saw him talking with Caroline Forbes. When they made their way to the parking lot, she decided to follow, trying to convince herself that it wasn't what it looked like. Watching them enter Tyler's home and watching Caroline leave with a large grin on her face, though, she couldn't lie to herself. Caroline was just the kind of girl his family would embrace. He wouldn't hide her or refuse to take her to town functions.

Driving down the street, Vicki headed away from the school. She couldn't face going back there knowing that Tyler had moved on to a girl who could give him everything she couldn't. Needing to get rid of the mental image of them together, she decided to head into the woods where she knew there would be a few people willing to share something to help her stop thinking. Maybe later she would text Jeremy and he could remind her that she wasn't always being rejected.


End file.
